Dr Azadeh Khatibi: Fighting for free speech in medicine

Azadeh Khatibi didn’t seek the spotlight. A board-certified physician with degrees in medicine, public health, and medical science, she expected to serve patients and study population health. But California’s COVID-era policies—mandates, censorship, politicized medicine—pushed her onto a different path.

She fought back. When California proposed AB2098, threatening doctors’ licenses for COVID dissent, she sued. When Governor Newsom’s allies pushed narratives ignoring public health ethics, she countered with lawsuits and congressional testimony. She understood both the science and the stakes.

Khatibi’s journey began with disillusionment. “I didn’t expect to be in this role,” she said. “But my name [literally] means ‘freedom’.” During COVID, she saw that freedom was threatened—doctors silenced, patients coerced, and public health manipulated by fear, not data.

She watched colleagues become enforcers of ideology. One screamed her own son’s health details across a waiting room. Another tried to shame her over vaccines. “They’ve lost the script,” she said. “He thought he was doing good. But he was lost in fear.”

Her public health education (MPH at UC Berkeley) taught her that true public health requires cultural humility and ethical integrity. During COVID, those principles vanished. “They weren’t practicing what we learned. Instead, it was politics in a lab coat.”

I offered a pointed analogy: “Even criminals get a defense attorney. Why don’t patients deserve the same confidentiality, loyalty, and advocacy from their own (ostensibly personal) physicians?”

California didn’t stop with COVID. It’s now mandating “implicit bias” speech from doctors in continuing education. Khatibi is fighting that too. “It’s state-controlled speech in medicine. That’s dystopian.”

Yet through it all, she remained centered. “Truth matters. Freedom matters.” Her podcast, “Within”, reflects that philosophy, as does her upcoming documentary chronicling the erosion—and defense—of medical liberty.

This is not about politics for Khatibi. It’s about integrity. “We’re not perfect,” she said. “But we should strive to live by principles.” And she does.

Find Dr. Khatibi here: